audience would understand that every Mongol could perform this martial
art with basic competence. The Chinese historiographical tradition and
historians writing in Chinese even for steppe rulers still required the
inclusion of a note in the biography of a warrior or general that he or she
was skilled in horse archery. It was an important distinction to make about
someone’s childhood or particular characteristics, something that set the
individual apart from any number of other people who did not practice
that particular martial art. Chinese literati were not horse-archers, even
if many northern Chinese elites were. Probably by the Song Dynasty,
but definitely by the Yuan Dynasty, the clearest indication that a man or
woman was part of the martial (wu) rather than civil (wen) world was
proficiency with horse archery. This emphasis no doubt grew during the
Song Dynasty as the limited number of horses available to the Chinese
even before the loss of north China increasingly made horse riding itself
a military skill. During the second half of the Song, very few people who
were not in the military would have been able to ride horses.
Hunting and the itinerant lifestyle of the steppe was a critical component
of the Mongol identity that Yuan emperors cultivated for their Mongol
subjects. Unlike Song emperors who, with the exception of the founding
emperor, did not hunt, Yuan emperors all hunted. Yurts, the portable felt
tents of the Mongols, were pitched on the grounds of the imperial palace.
Imperial hunts were held that included Mongol and other steppe aristocrats.
These hunts functioned as military exercises in coordinating groups of men
as well as providing the opportunity to demonstrate archery skills. After the
hunt there would be a large feast centered around eating enormous amounts
of recently killed game accompanied by drinking (mostly ofkoumiss,fer-
mented mare’s milk). In Chinese stories of martial artists likeThe Water
Margin,heroicfighters were frequently marked by their massive consump-
tion of meat and alcohol. It is unclear when martial vigor became connected
with ingesting large amounts of meat and wine, but it was so important
that it carried through even to Buddhistfigures who were, ostensibly,
teetotaling vegetarians.
Under the Kitan rulers, military campaigns began with a ceremony called
“Shooting Ghost Arrows.” The practice originated with the ritualized
execution of a prisoner by archery, but by the tenth and eleventh centuries
it had also developed a somewhat abstracted form as well. In the original
practice of shooting ghost arrows, the warriors, when going out on cam-
paign, would tie to a post a prisoner already condemned to death and shoot
him full of arrows. Upon returning from campaign, they would do the same
thing to a spy. In the later version, a campaign would begin and after thefirst
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